SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CAR CHIEF

Congratulations!

If you are reading this manual, you have likely been appointed by your team as your team’s Car Chief (see page 5)! This page provides you with additional instructions on how to run the FASTER TOGETHER program for your team.You may also purchase an optional (but highly recommended) F-A-S-T Team Toolkit, which also includes an additional facilitation guide for you.

2. Send out a one-hour meeting invitation to the team for the first meeting. In the meeting invitation, ask all team members to read the Preface, Introduction, the F-A-S-T Team Model, and take and score the F-A-S-T Team Test (through page 28). No additional reading is required for the first meeting. Ask participants to bring their scores to this meeting. They can also take the assessment online, and the system will email their scores to them as a PDF.

3. At the first meeting, go round robin to review the results of the F-A-S-T Team Test.

First, take turns sharing the score each person gave for the Grand Total and each of the Four Keys on page 25, highlighting the highest and lowest (keep track of the lowest scores on a piece of paper).

Then, delve deeper by comparing the Accelerator subtotals. This begins to give you a picture of which areas need the most improvement. Keep track of this as team members report out, either as a tally or by recording the actual scores and finding the average (dividing by the number of people on the team) for each.

Next, within the lowest Accelerators, flip back to the test and drill down into the scores for the 48 Speed Bumps. Follow the same process to rank order the Speed Bumps, starting with the lowest score.

Last, use this information to determine how long the program will run. I recommend your team begins with the lowest-scoring Speed Bump. Schedule a one-hour meeting each week (or every other week) to cover one Speed Bump. The length of your FASTER TOGETHER program will be determined by how many Speed Bumps the team believes they need to work on. There is no set length. If one team member strongly believes a Speed Bump is weak enough to work on, even if it’s not “in the list,” listen to each other and jointly determine your action plan. You can start anywhere—you don’t have to read the book cover to cover—it’s made to jump around.

Optionally, for an additional fee, our office can complete the process outlined in #3 above for you. We’ll create a special online URL for your team, tabulate the collective results, analyze our findings, and suggest an appropriate plan of attack for you. Email Nadine@TheProductivityPro.com about this option.

4. Send out meeting invitations for the remainder of the program to block your team’s calendars. List in advance the Speed Bumps and pages to be covered in each meeting, so people have ample time to read. Make every effort not to miss a FASTER TOGETHER program meeting.

5. At each meeting, as the Car Chief, you will facilitate the meeting, make sure each person has an opportunity to participate, and keep the conversation flowing. Lead a discussion about the reading, reactions, challenges, solutions, and action plans.

6. After each meeting, distribute brief minutes about the discussion, decisions made, and implementation.

Purchase the F-A-S-T Team Toolkit (optional but highly recommended)

As a supplement to the book, the F-A-S-T Team Toolkit is available for purchase to help the team discuss and resolve its challenges. For $199, you’ll receive:

1. A downloadable (and printable if desired) 8.5 x 11 50-PAGE PDF manual for the Team Car Chief to facilitate the FASTER TOGETHER program. This is additional content NOT in the FASTER TOGETHER text, which includes:

Three Key Points to summarize each Speed Bump (the Car Chief provides an overview of the text at the beginning of the meeting)

Three Discussion Questions to tee up the conversation (the participants have reflected on these questions in advance in their participant guides)

Three Interactive Activities:

a. A Case Study review of fictional Mayap University
b. An Application exercise (participants don’t have this text) with large group debrief
c. Instructions to facilitate the Team Car Activity. This is a separate Interactive Exercise in the participant manual (team members do not have this text, just a graphic).

2. A downloadable (and printable if desired) 8.5 x 11 100-page PDF workbook for team members to complete as they read the book. This is additional content NOT in the FASTER TOGETHER text, which includes:

A Case Study of fictional Mayap University with space to answer these questions:

a. What is your reaction to this situation after reading the text in FASTER TOGETHER?
b. How do you relate your team to the situation? Where have we experienced similar challenges?
c. What should the Mayap team have done differently?

Discussion Questions to complete/journal as participants read the text

Worksheets with activities to complete (the Car Chief will give the instructions during the team meeting)

3. A “Cliffs Notes” version of the book, with easy-to-review outlines of the Four Keys and 48 Speed Bumps, as well as the FAST TEAM quiz.

One purchase (license) is required PER TEAM (not per organization or per department). For example, a two hundred–strong department overseen by a VP is not a team; rather, the department would consist of multiple teams. Each team within the department and the leadership team, for example, would each need its own licensed Toolkit. I use the honor system; please respect these license terms and purchase one copy of this product for each team working the program together, typically 3-10 people.

FAQs

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions that might be helpful as you run the FASTER TOGETHER program:

1. LOCATION. Where should I hold the meetings?

If you have logical geographical teams, you can hold them onsite in any conference room or common area.

If your teams are remote or combined, you can hold meetings via phone, video conference, GoToMeeting.com, or some other virtual platform.

2. FREQUENCY. How often should the team meet?

The book is divided into four parts, so I’d recommend at least four meetings, weekly or every other week.

You can run a one-year program, with one week for the Introduction, one week for a Closing Celebration, 48 weeks to cover the Speed Bumps, allowing for two weeks of vacation/off weeks = 52 weeks

Optionally, you can just pick the Accelerator with the lowest average total for the team, and study each of the four Speed Bumps within it for a four-week program. If a weekly meeting seems to be too much, you could meet every other week, which would result in a two-month program.

Feel free to adjust the timing to the needs of your groups, holidays, other initiatives, etc.

3. LENGTH. How long should the meetings run?

One hour seems to work well, but I actually prefer 75 minutes to allow in-depth conversation, problem solving, and action planning. If you are really pressed for time, you can try 45 minutes, but be willing to change if you’re cutting off important discussion or sharing is reduced.

4. SPEAKING. Can Laura “kick off” the program, give a workshop, or facilitate the series?

Train-the-trainer curriculum will also available for half-day and full-day training sessions (to run the program with teams throughout your organization).

5. RESOURCES. Does the program use other resources in addition to the book, FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team’s Productivity?

Yes, you’ll find additional resources at www.fastertogetherthebook.com, including a trailer, recorded webinar, articles, social media samples, link to the online version of the F-A-S-T Team Test, a press kit, and more!

THANK YOU for taking the lead in engaging your team in the FASTER TOGETHER program! I trust you’ll find it valuable to you, your team, and your organization. Please email me at Laura@TheProductivityPro.com with any questions, comments, or success stories! I’d love to hear from you.

About TheAuthor

Laura Stack, MBA, CSPThe Productivity Pro ®

Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and noted authority on team and personal productivity. She is the president of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a company dedicated to helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Stack has authored eight books, including her newest work, FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team's Productivity (Jan. 2018). She is a past president of the National Speakers Association and was inducted into its exclusive Speaker Hall of Fame (with fewer than 175 members worldwide). Stack's clients include Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America, and she has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times.